September 6, 2021

China Announces Border ‘Cooperation’ Zone in Macau, Eyes High-End Chip Development

The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has unveiled plans for a semi-conductor research and development base jointly administered by authorities in the southern province of Guangdong and the formerly Portuguese city of Macau, paving the way for a blurring of the border between the two jurisdictions.

The process will start with the establishment of a “cooperation zone” on the Macau side of Hengqin Island, to be jointly administered by Guangdong and Macau, with a CCP, police, state security police and government presence.

The aim of the zone is to fast-track semiconductor chip designs and other high-tech research and development projects including new energy, big data, artificial intelligence and biomedical industries.

In a plan for a new industrial and residential development at Hengqin, an island south of Guangdong’s Zhuhai city, just over the bridge from Macau, the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) said greater cooperation was needed with Macau to build homes for its residents and integrate the city’s economy with that of Zhuhai and environs.

Hengqin is currently a divided island, with part of its territory leased to Macau and part still administered by Guangdong.

The Hengqin campus of the University of Macau and the Macau jurisdiction of Hengqin port are managed by the Macau Special Administrative Region government authorized by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.

They are currently subject to Macau regulation and governance, and are separated from the mainland Chinese side by physical fences.

“By the 25th anniversary of Macau’s return to the motherland in 2024, Guangdong and Macau will have discussed, jointly built, managed, and shared systems and mechanisms to run [Hengqin] smoothly,” the HKMAO statement said.

Border disappearing

It said some Macau residents already have jobs on the Guangdong side of the fence, and there are already signs of economic integration.

“By the 30th anniversary of Macao’s return to the motherland in 2029, the cooperation zone and Macao’s economy will be highly coordinated and its regulatory regime deeply integrated,” the HKMAO said.

The plan would also support the extension of Macau’s light rail service into the Zhuhai urban rail network and nationwide rail services, it said.

Macau journalist Choi Chi Chio said it was unclear how much of the funding for the new project will come from Macau.

“Part of Hengqin is under the jurisdiction of Macau, the so-called first line, where Macau’s civil and commercial regulation holds sway,” Choi told RFA. “It’s a disguised way to weaken the differences between Hengqin and Macau.”

“This distinction will disappear at some point in the future, as will the border, and the cultural differences will disappear too,” he said. “It’s not just about whether Macau has to contribute funding; it’s about assimilation.”

Joseph Cheng, former politics lecturer at Hong Kong’s City University, said a similar scheme is being rolled out on the border between Hong Kong and mainland China, near Shenzhen.

“There are two directors of [the Hengqin] cooperation zone; the governor of Guandong and the Macau chief executive,” Cheng said. “This has never happened before.”

“But don’t forget that the Hengqin cooperation zone is run by the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area Construction Leading Group,” he said. “If this model is applied to areas of Hong Kong like Qianhai, then it will erode the roles of Hong Kong and Macau in the name of Greater Bay Area integration.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

September 6, 2021

China Cracks Down on Tech Sector as Curbs on User Data Take Effect

Chinese regulators have ordered tech giants to “rectify” their business models amid an ongoing crackdown on the private technology sector.

Officials from the Ministry of Transport, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the State Administration of Market Supervision, met with managers from ride-sharing app Didi Chuxing, the food delivery app Meituan and nine other transportation and travel firms on Sept. 1 and ordered them to clean up their act.

“Some platforms have recently been using a variety of vicious methods to compete, including recruiting or enticing unlicensed drivers and vehicles to carry out illegal operations,” the Ministry of Transport said in a statement on its official WeChat account.

“Each platform should … immediately rectify non-compliant behaviors,” it said, ensuring that the necessary permits had been obtained for drivers, vehicles and the platform.

“They must not use vicious competition, disorderly expansion to exclude or restrict the competition … nor pass all of their operational risks on to drivers,” it said.

Companies should also ensure that drivers receive “reasonable remuneration” for their labor, and display the amount of commission taken for customers to see.

“It is necessary to unblock channels for drivers to express their demands to avoid the intensification of conflict and the escalation of incidents,” it said.

Drivers should also have enough rest time and companies should reduce the commission they take from each ride, it said.

The move comes amid an ongoing crackdown on large, privately owned technology companies, and as ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping starts to implement measures aimed at achieving “common prosperity,” or moderate wealth for all.

Reuters reported that Didi and Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com recently set up unions for their workers, suggesting that workers’ rights are increasingly the focus of the CCP’s concern with the potential for destabilizing social unrest.

People walk past Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com's autonomous vehicles used to deliver goods to customers, outside a supermarket in Beijing, June 18, 2021. Credit: AFP — People walk past Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com’s autonomous vehicles used to deliver goods to customers, outside a supermarket in Beijing, June 18, 2021. Credit: AFP

Boosting the state sector

A Jiangxi-based scholar surnamed Zhu said the overall thrust of the government’s regulation appears to be in the direction of nationalization.

“Recently, Beijing has struck some heavy blows against some big companies,” Zhu said. “This is not accidental, but a trend that stems from Xi Jinping’s policy of boosting the state sector at the expense of the private.”

“That is now proceeding at an accelerated pace.”

There are growing indicators that the government is also moving towards nationalization of user data and services.

A new data security law that took effect on Sept. 1 lays down strict regulations about what technology platforms must do with data entrusted to service providers by hundreds of millions of users.

Failure to verify the identities of buyers or sellers of data can result in fines of up to U.S.$1.5 million, while organizations and individuals are banned from handing over user data to overseas law enforcement agencies without permission from Beijing.

“Core” data “related to national security, the lifeline of the national economy, major aspects of the people’s livelihood, and major public interests”, will be subject to stricter scrutiny.

The law took effect after regulators began a probe into U.S.-listed Didi Chuxing, which runs one of China’s biggest ride-sharing apps and truck-hailing platform Full Truck Alliance, citing “national security” concerns.

Sharing economy controls

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal in August, the country’s stock market regulator plans to block tech firms handling large amounts of sensitive user data from launching IPOs overseas.

Meanwhile, a personal information protection law aimed at setting controls on companies’ use of user data will likely take effect in November 2021.

And the State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR) said on Aug. 30 that it would regulate the sharing economy, a sector that includes companies facilitating ride-sharing, bike-sharing, home sharing and even the pooling of battery packs for phones.

Regulators have recently also announced a ban on online gaming by minors outside of designated time-slots on Fridays, weekends and holidays, with weekly gaming limited to three hours.

And the CCP is pushing tech giants to invest in a state-owned “cloud” storage platform, in a direct, and nationalized, challenge to tech giants Alibaba, Huawei and Tencent.

Companies owned by the Tianjin municipal government have been ordered to migrate their data away from commercial cloud service providers to the state-owned alternative, Reuters reported recently.

At the same time, the government is tightening supervision of algorithms used to send tailor-made data, content and advertising to users, banning algorithms that are designed to make users spend large amounts of money, or “disrupt public order.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

September 6, 2021

Jimmy Lai’s Next Digital Heads For Liquidation After National Security Raid

A Hong Kong media empire founded by pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai has announced it is going into liquidation, citing a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020.

All of the directors of Lai’s Next Digital resigned on Sunday in the wake of the closure of its flagship Apple Daily newspaper in June.

The move came after Next Digital had its assets frozen pending an investigation into charges of “collusion with foreign powers,” brought against Lai and senior journalists at the Apple Daily following a raid by national security police on June 17.

The company made the announcement the the Hong Kong Stock Exchange late on Sunday.

“The board of directors of Next Digital Limited hereby announces the resignations of all the directors of the Company with effect from 23:59 (Hong Kong time) on 5 September 2021,” the statement said.

Ip Yut Kin has tendered his resignation as a non-executive director and chairman of the company, while Louis Gordon Crovitz, Mark Lambert Clifford and and Elic Lam have resigned as independent non-executive directors at the same time, it said.

Trading in Next Digital shares has been suspended since the national security police raid on June 17, and will remain suspended.

“We have concluded that the best interests of shareholders, creditors, employees and other stakeholders will be served by an orderly liquidation, which we hope will result in liquidators being allowed by the Hong Kong government to authorise payments that directors were banned from approving, including for creditors and for former staff,” the board members said in a statement accompanying the announcement.

Signage for Next Digital and Apple Daily are seen displayed outside the offices of the the offices of the local Apple Daily newspaper in Hong Kong , June 17, 2021. Credit: AFP

‘No other rights are safe’

Next Digital arranged on Aug. 9 to surrender the remaining lease on its former business headquarters in the Tseung Kwan O industrial estate.

“We observe that the events affecting the company and its people following the invocation of the National Security Law occurred despite there having been no trials and no convictions,” the Next Digital board members’ statement said. “Under this new law, a company can be forced into liquidation without the involvement of the courts.”

“As Apple Daily often observed, Hong Kong people have a collective memory of what life was like elsewhere when freedom of speech was denied: No other rights are safe,” it said.

The announcement by Next Digital came as Tiananmen vigil organizers the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China refused to cooperate with a request by national security police to hand over detailed information on its finances, membership and activities dating back years.

Alliance vice-chairwoman Chow Hang-tung said the group wouldn’t be cooperating with the Aug. 25 order to hand over confidential documents by Sept. 7, saying it wasn’t bound to comply because it isn’t an agent of a foreign government under Article 43 of the national security law.

Chow said the Alliance is considering filing a judicial review to challenge that definition.

“They’re trying to intimidate the people who participate in the social movement,” Chow told government broadcaster RTHK.

“And we now clearly say that this sort of intimidation will stop at us. We will not transmit that fear through our compliance,” she said.

The police said they would take action against any group failing to comply with such orders, while the security bureau warned that anyone refusing to provide information under the law could face a fine or a prison sentence.

Debating disbanding

Chow said Alliance committee members remain at risk of arrest and prosecution. A plenary meeting of the Alliance will decide whether or not to disband.

A statement issued by the Alliance said nothing in the police letter mentioned the rationale for the allegation that the Alliance is a “foreign agent” nor clearly indicates the country or organization that is is suspected of acting for.

The letter demanded that records of all activities, expenditures, and contacts with “political parties or any other organizations that pursue political ends outside the territory of the People’s Republic of China or in Taiwan” be submitted to police by Sept. 7.

“It seems that they are fishing for so-called evidence that Hong Kong Alliance is a ‘foreign agent’,” the group said.

“Hong Kong Alliance … refuses to cooperate with such an unreasonable demand [and] refuses to be used by the authorities to spread fear,” it said.

It said the Alliance is in the process of considering whether or not to disband.

“The Standing Committee … decided only by a narrow majority to vote on a proposal to dissolve the organization at a General Assembly,” the statement said.

The matter will be put to a vote at an Extraordinary General Assembly on Sept. 25, it said.

More than 100 opposition politicians, activists and protesters have been arrested so far on charges under the national security law, including allegations of secession, subversion and terrorist activities, with more than 10,000 arrested under pre-existing laws for their part in the 2019 protest movement against the erosion of Hong Kong’s promised freedoms.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

September 6, 2021September 7, 2021

Vietnamese Man Jailed for 5 Years for Spreading Coronavirus

Vietnam jailed a man on Monday for five years for breaking strict COVID-19 quarantine rules and spreading the virus to others, state media reported.

Le Van Tri, 28, was convicted of “spreading dangerous infectious diseases” at a one-day trial at the People’s Court of the southern province of Ca Mau, the state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.

Vietnam has been one of the world’s coronavirus success stories, thanks to targeted mass testing, aggressive contact tracing, tight border restrictions and strict quarantine. But new clusters of infections since late April have tarnished that record.

“Tung traveled back to Ca Mau from Ho Chi Minh City … and breached the 21-day quarantine regulations,” the news agency said.

“Tung infected eight people, one of whom died due to the virus after one month of treatment,” it added.

Reuters did not immediately reach the Ca Mau court for comment.

Ca Mau, Vietnam’s southernmost province, has reported only 191 cases and two deaths since the pandemic began, much lower than the nearly 260,000 cases and 10,685 deaths in the country’s coronavirus epicenter, Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnam is battling a worsening COVID-19 outbreak that has infected more than 536,000 people and killed 13,385, the vast majority in the past few months.

The country has sentenced two other people to 18-month and two-year suspended jail terms on the same charges.

Source: Voice of America

September 6, 2021September 7, 2021

UN to Discuss Myanmar Representation at General Assembly

Myanmar is awaiting a U.N. General Assembly decision that could play a role in who leads the country in the future. Myanmar is still grappling with the aftermath of a military coup that ousted the democratically elected government February 1.

At the 76th General Assembly session next week, Myanmar will be a hot topic, as the Credentials Committee, made up of nine countries, must recommend an entity to take the country’s U.N. seat.

The choice comes down to either the military junta or representatives of the former government.

The military claims it ousted the ruling National League for Democracy because the party had ignored allegations that the general elections in November 2020 were riddled with fraud. The NLD had won the poll in a landslide, drubbing the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party in a contest deemed mostly free and fair by local and international election observers.

NLD’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and former President Win Myint have been detained since the coup and face several charges.

Meanwhile, a group called the National Unity Government (NUG), founded in the wake of the coup, claims to be Myanmar’s legitimate government. It is made up of ousted politicians, leaders and pro-democracy activists, and the military deems it illegal.

In a crackdown on anti-coup protesters led by the civil disobedience movement (CDM), more than 1,000 people have been killed and thousands more detained, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a nonprofit human rights group based in Thailand.

While signs of a possible civil war continue to increase, some prominent women activists are calling for international pressure on the junta.

Daw Ma Khin Lay, a former political activist and aid to Suu Kyi in the 1990s, left Myanmar following the coup.

Khin Lay is the director of Triangle Women Organization, a civil society group advocating for women’s empowerment. Khin Lay maintains she is doing “what needs to be done” to eliminate military rule.

According to Khin Lay, there is a possibility the U.N. could recognize the NUG.

“We have to try many possible ways, diplomacy way, international pressure,” Khin Lay said. “The credential is very important to get the recognition of the NUG and denounce the military. … Our desire is to reject the military. This is the best possible way.”

In February, Kyaw Moe Tun, then Myanmar’s representative to the U.N., appealed for the coup to end. He was subsequently fired by the military. It was later reported that New York authorities had arrested two people allegedly involved in a conspiracy to assassinate him.

Khin Lay added that although there are hopes for the NUG to be recognized, it is essential that the U.N. recognize Moe Tun.

“Credentials are very new for us. We have to learn,” Khin Lay said. “According to ASEAN, there will be three possible options. (We believe) the most possible … is to recognize Moe Tun,” she added. ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Thinzar Shunlei Yi is another prominent activist fighting for change in Myanmar. She is wanted by the military but managed to speak to VOA by phone in August.

The activist maintains that the coup is still regarded as a failure, as the CDM continues to stifle the junta’s operations.

“Even after the killings, people still go on the streets and keep protesting, so the grounds are different,” she said. “We still have many protests in different places, in different forms. On the street, digital platforms — so I feel the resistance is still going strong even after all these intimidations. … People still risk their life. That’s the mindset of CDM people.”

And the activist stressed there should be no confusion about whom the U.N. should recognize.

“For the recognition of NUG, I don’t think it is a dilemma. These are not two political parties. This is clearly a military junta abusing power to grab power and take control of the civilian government. The U.N. community doesn’t need to have that dilemma,” she said.

Source: Voice of America

September 6, 2021September 7, 2021

Petronas Joins as Premier Partner for Malaysia Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai

KUALA LUMPUR— Malaysia Pavilion for Expo 2020 Dubai announced Sunday that Petronas, the national oil and gas company has joined as its premier partner for the World Expo that will take place from Oct 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022.

In a statement, Malaysia Pavilion said with its aspiration to be a progressive energy and solutions partner, the national energy company’s participation aligns perfectly with the Pavilion’s “Energising Sustainability” theme.

As climate change becomes one of the most important priorities for the global community, Expo 2020 Dubai is a good platform for Petronas to showcase its sustainability aspirations and roadmap to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2020.

“Our partnership with Malaysia Pavilion gives us the opportunity to showcase Petronas’ commitment and holistic approach to sustainability.

“We are embracing the need to chart a more sustainable path forward, and drive the maturity of our environment, social and governance (ESG) practices as well as realising our Net Zero Carbon Emissions by 2050 aspiration,” Petronas president and group chief executive officer Tengku Muhammad Taufik said.

Themed “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”, the World Expo will be participated by 192 countries and organisations.

This quinquennial mega-event aims to promote global cooperation, innovation, technological development, human progress and education, and will be held for the first time in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region.

Malaysia’s participation in Expo 2020 Dubai is led by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation with Malaysia Green Technology and Climate Change Centre as implementing agency.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK